


Space is a Wheeling Loom (and we're stuck balls deep)

by mawi



Series: I Promise This is Leading Up to a House Party [1]
Category: Kamen Rider 555, Kamen Rider Agito, Kamen Rider Den-O, Kamen Rider Gaim, Kamen Rider Hibiki, Kamen Rider Kiva, Kamen Rider Ryuki, Kamen Rider Series, Kamen Rider W (Double)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, IN SPACE!, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-17 11:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2308172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mawi/pseuds/mawi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something goes terribly wrong in Zawame City - too fast, too early, no warning whatsoever. Kouta is ripped from his world's troubles to find that being a rider is both more and less straightforward than it seems and splitting a dimension at the zips has a few more consequences than he had imagined. He has new friends to meet and new challenges to face and he will find out a lot about himself. Like, shit-tons.</p><p>He's also stuck in a flying dragon castle.</p><p>Rest assured, no matter what happens, this is a promise: <b>there will be a sick house party at the end.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Three characters sit around and explain the premise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this story, I promise: things will happen. It'll be boring and uneventful (a lot). Other times, things will go terribly wrong and everyone will miss the boring stuff because no one likes crying. Gross. (This is Kamen Rider, after all.)
> 
> Don’t think about it too hard. This should read exactly like a filler episode. Just, like, relax. I gotcha.
> 
> Takes place a few days after the Kikaider episode of Gaim. Roughly. Like I said, just go with it.

* * *

 

Kouta Kazuraba feels the darkness inside his eyelids, pressing his eyeballs back against his brain and touching the gray matter, not concussive, per se, but in a rattling, maraca-like settling against his skull. He is pretty sure this is death. It's not the first kind of death he would have considered, but he never got around to thinking about the concept, you know, critically speaking. He is pretty sure that mortality is something you're at least supposed to meditate on when you hit your twenties. Cranial homework, neurons firing about the absence of, taking up space where seven classes _daily_ once took residence and afterward deserted (if you bothered to get around to pondering mortality) (Kouta hasn't) (not even after the white rider) (not quite yet.) As long as you don't get caught up in the smallness of everything, everyone, yourself, you're good.

This is not good. This is pretty balls. Hairy ones.

One (mental) firm shake of the head later and he's back. Like, _really_ back. First, he has no business thinking about theoretically present and definitely nasty junk in what may be his last moments; second, why think about mortality when you're living it? Dying it. _Words_. He decides in a flash of inspiration that he would probably be better off thinking about the living part of the situation than the part where he panics about the immortal soul and goes into the dark crying pathetic tears. No. Not now. (If ever.) To business.

How much time has passed?

Where was he?

For a moment, he thought he was dying, and now it occurs to him that he doesn't know how he arrived at the conclusion. _Wow_.

Kouta decides in another brilliant flash to skip to the part where he addresses the concrete parts of the situation. Five senses, right.

He stretches, toes and fingers inching outward through soft warmth. His limbs are weighed down by soft, yielding heaviness. A comforter? A bed? Something is sticking damply to his forehead, and it's an enormous ease off his mind to realize that it's probably a damp towel. His eyelids force a flutter open and pools of fuzzy mahogany shades pour in like new pavement, heavy. Somehow it's too much. He lets his eyes fall shut again.

He thinks he hears someone under his daze. "See" is one of the words, he's sure. The word rounds out, tumbling through his brain in a sluggish flow. It's mixing with memory now, which comes in bubbles, with hiccups.

It was loud.

What was loud?

He groans. Even that's an effort, the noise blossoming through his nose, toothpaste from the tube, but the voice reacts. The cadence of the voice sounds nice; delight with a hint of buoyancy. Excitement. "For some food," it finishes, and another voice gives a chirp that sounds like an affirmation, followed by the creak-thump of bare feet moving away. "And tell Inui-san so he doesn't," it begins again, sending Kouta's thoughts into a tailspin. Inui? Doesn't he know an Inui? Maybe there'd been someone by that name at the convenience store he went to earlier.

The convenience store...?

_The smoke stings his eyes, sharp ash-scent on the wind as his hands fumble for his driver and for Mai's hand._

_"Kouta-kun, look." There is no urgency in her voice. Light blooms through the broken window she points through. His eyes follow her finger into the haze and upward._

He feels the towel slipping off his head as the voice starts chattering away in its muffled self-absorption, but the rest of his memories start tumbling in through the floodgates, one setting off the next setting off the next, blending the flow of real chatter into the rumble in his recollection, reality lost in the sound of a city panicking. Memories blends into dreams, giving the images light, taste, color, smell -

_Acrid smoke fills his nose. He gags and holds his sleeve to his mouth, taking slow breaths. "Where's Micchy? We can't just give up!"_

_He sees his hand reach for Mai's. Her head turns slowly, looking into his eyes with her lips pressed tight. She nods tersely, but with a dreamlike slowness, the people dashing in the streets moving in unknowable blurs. "This is our city," she begins, pulling him through the sparking automatic door, sliding between open and jammed open, pushing through a cascade of people in the street. "Even like this, we need to take it back."_

_He grips her hand tightly and looks over Zawame City, the distant sound of sirens hovering over the roiling streets like buzzards. It burns. It crumbles. It roars._

_"Kouta." She says his name like a brace._

_"Don't let go," he starts, but the ground underneath him splits and crumbles as it folds, cracks like gunshots, loud, present. The concrete tents upward and pitches them apart. He feels her hand grip once, tightly._

_"Kouta-kun. Kouta!" His eyes widen and his other hand fumbles for a Lockseed. Steam shoots up from between the cracks, followed by a telltale iridescence, roots like snakes tearing through the concrete like so much paper. Tendrils curl up and outward, trunks covered in living ivy dotted with plum-dark fruit burst between the cracks, sending flocks of green leaves into the sky._

_The air is getting very grey._

_A rumble. They fall to their knees, gripping tightly over a new hill cracked through, revealing knotted bark and leaves underneath. Kouta finally fumbles the lockseed into its slot. "Don't let go, don't let - "_

The shock from the memory impact kickstarts Kouta's heart, jumps him upright and punches a short howl from his gut. A scraping noise rends the air as the person occupying the chair next to Kouta's bed starts, a damp towel clutched in their hands and their eyes rounded out in surprise. A series of screams outside of Kouta's range of vision followed by a clatter and a wet crash startles another yelp from Kouta's mouth, who whips his head around to see the commotion. A young man, who lies against the door with a tray upended at his feet and food all around on the floor and down the front of his shirt, plasters himself against the wood, mouth open and inhaling for another scream.

Which he fires off into the room. They both do. It's a scene.

"Heeey, hey hey. Let's." The guy in the chair tosses the towel into a large bowl, shiny with enamel and emblazoned with a rose, where the towel lands with a wet _splap_. His hair whips around as he holds out his hands in a universal please-cease-and-desist, his bangs held back by a handkerchief tucked behind his ears. He pauses, then interjects when both stop to take a breath. " _Stop!_ Quit it. Hold your breath, hold your nose. Now!"

The requests stun both men into obedience. They hold their breath and Kouta watches the door guy hold his nose, his shirt still dripping with what looks like miso soup. Kouta joins him, pinching his nose just under the bridge.

"Five, four, three, two, one. We are all going to breathe out. Together. Go."

A rush of air fills the room. It turns into a laugh as the door guy releases his nose and slumps back, sliding down and pushing away the steaming mess with his feet. He ends the laugh with a sheepish sigh. "Well. Thanks, Tsugami. Don't know what got into me."

"You don't react like that unless you've got some steam to blow off. Neither of you." The handkerchief guy (Tsugami, Kouta reminds himself) lets a huge, easy smile split his face in two. It's a friendly feature on a sun-darkened face, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he waves the remaining awkwardness out of the air. "And Shouichi's fine. We'll end up on first name terms at some point, I think," he directs at the door guy as he gets up and leans over to inspect Kouta.

For the first time Kouta realizes that his jacket and shirt are gone. Swathes of bandages cover his chest instead. He reaches a hand up and touches his own face, fingertips brushing over a thickly applied bandage between the corner of his mouth and his jaw. A twinge in his chest catches his attention, no longer masked by post-nightmare adrenaline. Things start to sting. Lots of things.

"First name terms. You think so?" The door guy shakes his head and gets on his knees, flipping the tray and stacking broken pieces of dishware on top. "Was it in the stars? In the cards? How good are your predictions, anyway?"

"Hm." Another onceover and Tsugami Shouichi appears satisfied by what he sees. He prods Kouta by the shoulder, leaning him back towards the pillow. "I don't think you reopened anything, but you should lie back down. I'll change your dressings tomorrow, I think."

Kouta resists a little and opens his mouth in protest, only to be interrupted by a laugh from the guy at the door. (They're both a little older than him, or so Kouta thinks. It's hard to say. They both have a certainty to their actions that is making Kouta feel a little inadequate, no matter how bumbling or clumsy they may act.)

"'Hm'? What's that supposed to mean?" The door guy's voice tinges with playfulness, and he opens his mouth to continue his remark, but the door swings open and smacks him into the floor instead. He lands face first into the food. Kouta's mouth drops open. (Ah. The door guy became the floor guy.)

Tsugami turns his head in time to catch sight of the newcomer as he steps through the door, who studies the result of his actions with a look of mild dismay on his face. "Oh, Inui-san," he says, pleasantly. "Hey."

"Tsugami," Inui replies, sidling around the guy on the floor (who rolls onto his back, whining a wordless complaint. Kouta considers taking back his previous assessment of him.) He focuses his attention on the pair at the bed, his shoulders tensed and hands beginning to clench. His eyes droop down at the outer corners, somber, but his gaze is fierce, alarming, calculating in a way that reminds Kouta of some great predator. The look is familiar. Very familiar.

_Kamen Rider._

"What happened?" Inui narrows his eyes at Kouta, who suddenly feels a lot more naked. "I heard..."

"Nothing, nothing." Tsugami waves his hands and stands up. He nabs the towel from the bowl and strides over to help the door guy off the floor, wiping off his face and hands in short, businesslike strokes. "Just a misunderstanding. Nothing to fear from our friend here."

("Hey, I'm not a kid." The guy is thoroughly covered in food yet has the gall to pout a little, snatching the cloth away. "I can handle this."

"Yes, yes." Tsugami lets him scrub his own face, then goes for the hem of the door guy's sweatshirt. There is a tussle.)

"I know you," Kouta interjects. He isn't sure if he'll get in a word edgewise if he doesn't.

"Yes, you do," Inui says, watching the two finally disentangle themselves from the food-stained sweatshirt and start cleaning the mess off the floor and onto the tray. Inui's voice is terse, confrontational. This is definitely the guy.

"Faiz... right?" The foreign word lifts off Kouta's lips with a stumble.

"And you're Gaim. We all know." Inui opens his mouth to continue, but Tsugami pops up back onto his feet and shoves the tray into his hands. Inui nails him with a stare. Tsugami returns it with a smile, plopping the sweatshirt on top of the food indiscriminately.

"Okay! All done. Bring this back to the kitchen, put it in the sink, put the shirt in the laundry room, ask Ryoutarou-kun for another meal. Don't startle him again! Don't throw things. Be nice. Start the darks, they've soaked long enough." Shouichi tosses the soiled towel on the pile in a conclusive sort of gesture, turns him around, and shepherds him out the door with a gentle push.

The door guy, now down to a plain cotton tee, shakes his head after the door shuts and Inui's footfalls fade away. "You think he can manage that? Being nice."

"He likes Ryoutarou-kun. That helps, I think. He'll try."

"I hope so. And if he doesn't, I'd love to see what those Imagin of his would do for revenge." The man makes a horrible face at the door.

" _Shinji-kun_."

"Right, right. Get-ting a-long." The door guy (Shinji, Shinji, Shinji, Kouta repeats to himself) waves him off, pulling a chair up to Kouta's bed and flopping into it. He's short and slight, with his long hair pulled back and pinned to the back of his head. He starts picking stray white grains off his clothes. He still smells slightly of dashi.

"Uh," Kouta begins, then realizes he doesn't remember what he wanted to ask. He'd spent too long trying to find an opening into the conversation. Damn.

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions." Tsugami sinks into the other chair, hands on his knees as he leans towards Kouta, his eyes crinkling at the corners again with the strange, fond air he carries around him like an overcoat. "Do you want to start, or should we?"

Kouta pauses. Right. "I'm pretty sure," he begins, "that you have more idea of where to start than I do."

Shinji grins this time, letting out a short bark of laughter. "You've got that right."

"What he means is that we've done introductions like this a lot. Fifth time, I think?"

"For you. I don't get invited to as many of these as you."

"Because you're nosy," Tsugami says with a smile tugging at his mouth.

Shinji returns the comment with a whine. "Am _not_."

"Calm down, it's endearing. Anyway," Tsugami continues, focusing on Kouta and ignoring the overwrought look of pain on Shinji's face, "that's fair enough to say. Let's start at the beginning. You're in a flying castle, which is why this room is so big and fancy."

It was, too. The bed is canopied, Kouta realizes; the walls are carved with embellishments from ceiling to floor and the ceiling vaults into lavish spaciousness. Even the wooden chairs the pair pulled to the bed are plush and elegantly carved, backs scrolled and feet ending in fleur-de-lis.

"You've been sleeping for a couple of days now, or at least that's how long you've been out since you got here," Shinji says, taking out a palm-sized notebook from his back pocket and flipping it open with his thumb.

"I patched you up and let you rest. We're all pretty sure that nothing's broken, but you were a mess. Scared Ryoutarou-kun pretty bad."

"You landed right on top of him." Shinji laughs, looking up from his notebook. "Fourth time that's happened. He's got some terrible luck. Still, that meant that Kintaros was around to haul you up to the room and start making sure you were all right."

Kouta nods, pretending that he's following all of this and Kintaros is a perfectly normal name to toss around. "You said we're flying?"

"Yeah. I'll draw the curtain later so you can have a look." Tsugami nods at the wall opposing the door, and Kouta turns his head to find the wall lined with heavy crimson curtains. "The view's pretty impressive."

"See, the castle's also a dragon." Shinji draws a photo out of his notebook and hands it to Kouta. The image of a dragon fused with a castle is overlaid with badly focused images of what looks like three brightly colored monsters and a larger image of one of the riders that he'd seen before, the chains on his armor stirring up a memory of the rider he had seen months ago.

Kouta looks up at Shinji with his eyebrows drawn up in confusion. "This photo is really terrible."

Shinji shrugs and takes the photo back. "Yeah. It's not edited at all, which is the weird part. You'll have to ask Kadoya about that."

"Anyway," Tsugami continues, tapping on the photo as it passes, "the rider in the picture, Kiva, owns Castle Doran. Wataru-san's graciously let us all use the castle as a base for the time being, since so many of us have been washing up here anyway."

Questions bubble up like froth, but Kouta decides to stick to the easiest ones for now, in order of urgency. "How many of us are there? Are we," he says, pausing to hope that the assumption doesn't sound too stupid, "all riders, here? Did I come with anyone else? Mai? Micchy - er, Ryugen?"

Shinji and Tsugami look at each other, faces sobering a bit. "You came alone," Shinji finally says, looking back at Kouta. "We all did, more or less. And you're right, we are all Riders, sort of," he confirms, looking down into his notebook and taking a pen from the side table, jotting something down as he speaks. "Fourteen of us plus you - no, wait, fifteen, W is a partner combination, right - fifteen, plus Ryoutarou's Imagin and three kaijin from Kiva's world makes twenty. And, well, there are Kivat and Tatsulot and Natsumi-chan's little bat, but they don't take up as much space. Sorry," he says, looking up from his notes. His apology is written over his face too, and he speaks gingerly. "Your friends haven't come here."

Kouta absorbs this information quietly, feeling his heart sink. His sister had been expecting him back with grapeseed oil and ketchup. _Akira..._

The pause hangs in the air before Tsugami speaks again. "We'll find them if they're out there. And they are, I'm sure." He beams before continuing. "Anyway, we should probably get to know each other before we get any farther! After all, we'll be in each other's company for a while, at least." He bobs his head in a bow. "I'm Tsugami, Tsugami Shouichi - Kamen Rider Agito. It's nice to meet you."

"He's the chef here, and head of housekeeping." Shinji leans over and hooks his elbow over Tsugami's shoulder, knocking their heads together. "He's basically the perfect wife, if you're interested."

"Hey now..."

"It's a fact. I've got it in my notebook under your entry." He ruffles the back of Shouichi's head, the tip of his handkerchief bouncing off his fingers, before giving him a light shove. He closes the notebook and gestures to himself with it. "I'm Kido. Kido Shinji, your friendly neighborhood journalist. Also Kamen Rider Ryuki, the red one with the shutter mask." He motions lines across his face with his finger. "You know, kind of like a vent."

"Or a cheese grater."

"Heeey..."

"Right." Kouta nods. He does remember that mask. He also remembers the dragon that the guy summoned, and the skill and force with which the rider Agito fought. Somehow, he is having trouble resolving his image of the two riders with the two men poking fun at each other at his bedside. Speaking of...

"He's not in charge of anything. He's pretty clumsy." Tsugami grins as Shinji levels a glare at him. "It's true."

"I'm getting better! That was the first dish I've broken in _ages._ And I take notes," Shinji adds defensively, waving his notebook around.

"And it has come in handy," Tsugami reassures him. " And you help me with the cooking. Your gyouza is very good. You're a great help even if you aren't in charge of anything."

Shinji grumbles, but his hackles lower a bit. "And you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah." Still clearly a little ruffled, Shinji nonetheless presses on, leaning over his knees and looking at Kouta with hungry enthusiasm. "We've all talked one way or the other over the past... Phew, it's been over a decade for some of us. But you're the new kid. Introduce yourself, squirt."

Kouta can't help but bristle a little. Squirt? Shinji couldn't be more than a few centimeters taller than him, if that. "Kazuraba. Kazuraba Kouta. From Zawame City."

"And your name's spelled...?"

"... Normally, I guess? Kudzu leaves, great luxury. Does it matter," Kouta ventures to ask.

"Hey, Shinji-kun, now look what you've done. You'll have to excuse him," Tsugami says, smiling in his mild, teasing way. "I'm not sure if he knows how to mind his own business."

"I just want to get it right. Getting down the right information is important." Shinji opens his notebook again and jots down the kanji, more distracted than offended now. "Just tell me if you don't want to answer. It's fine, we've all got our own deals going on."

"Not that that will stop him from asking."

" _I'm not that bad._ "

It's like a manzai duo, sort of, Kouta thinks to himself. "What's Inui been up to? And Tsukasa?"

"Right. Inui Takumi and Kadoya Tsukasa." Shinji leafs through his notes, shaping the syllables with the tip of his tongue as he searches the pages. "I keep forgetting you've met them out of their transformations. Inui isn't really in charge of anything either, but he leaves the castle to find supplies with Kenzaki and Kisaragi. That's Blade and Fourze, by the way, you'll meet them soon. I know Kisaragi's gonna get a kick out of meeting you. Inui spends his time hanging onto Kenzaki and Souma's coattails and trying not to make it obvious that he likes anyone else, even though he does. How old are you?"

"Ah." Sans the fact that Takumi had made a friend in Blade (and someone else?), at least that all wasn't too surprising. "Twenty. Wait, twenty-one now. What about Tsukasa?"

Both men crack up. "Well... usually, he's not around." The tone of Tsugami's voice is definitely indulgent this time. "He does a lot of traveling with Godai-san - that's Kuuga - and Natsumi-chan. Actually..." He turns to Shinji.

Shinji shakes his head. "I don't think he'd know about her. Kamen Rider Kivaala, and the only girl around here besides Kivaala herself. Kadoya's photo café suddenly latched itself onto one of the castle's attics and Natsumi and Kivaala happened to be inside. Lucky guy," he adds. The constant cheer under his energetic briskness remains, but a hint of tightness squeezes on his words. "He's the only one who's found a close friend so far."

Tsugami aims a brief smile at both of them. "Very lucky. He's got a power that lets him cross dimensions into other worlds, and he uses it to find what he can. He, ah, mostly uses it to play space-time pranks on us, though."

"By space-time pranks, he means elaborate mind games." Shinji shakes his head again. "If anything in the castle looks weird or seems like it's moved, just assume it's him saying hello."

"If it gets drastic, tell Natsumi and she'll sort it out for you."

Kouta isn't necessarily surprised by the information - he's pretty sure he's got a good picture of what Tsukasa's like from the few times they've met, and douchebag pranking sounds right up his alley - but he can't help but wonder why anyone puts up with it, let alone let him get away with so much that it's a fact of living here. He'd fought alongside them more than once, but hadn't really paid much attention to their activities besides how they affected him and his city. The situation in Zawame had always seemed more dire. If he was being honest, though, he'd been suspecting activities more along the lines of tense task force summits and tactical discussions from the riders, not miso soup and interdimensional practical jokes. What kind of people _were_ riders supposed to be, anyway?

"Okay," he says, despite his multiplying questions. "I've got it. Is, uh, Wizard here?" His voice lilts in hope. Kouta doesn't know where he stands with the rest of the riders, but he knows he likes the ring wizard from the few times they've spoken.

Tsugami's entire face brightens. Shinji looks over at him and laughs. "Sure is. He's got some fans, too. That's Souma - he never introduced himself?"

Kouta shakes his head. "There never really was a good time, I guess." The samurai war had been more like speed chess than an epic battle. Things rushed along until you were a giant watermelon getting punted into a malevolent tree by a giant burning wizard. Not much time for introductions.

Shinji pushes his mouth to the side in amusement. "Figures. Anyway, he's here, Takumi's taken a real shine to him for some reason, along with the rest of the half that isn't obsessed with Hibiki-san-" He pauses in the middle of opening his mouth, his eyes cast off towards the ceiling in sudden recollection. "Oh, that's right. Souma's been here a couple of times to check up on you."

"He has?"

"Yeah." Returning his attention downward, Shinji grins toothily. "What, are you two buddies or something?"

"Yeah!" The force with which the answer leaves Kouta's mouth stuns him a little. Well. He lifts an arm (his other one is heavy with bandages) and scratches at the back of his head. "I mean, I guess so? He's cool."

"Cool, huh." Shinji shakes his head and looks at his hands. "That's good. He's asleep right now, but I'll let him know that you're up."

"Ah, thanks." Kouta catches Tsugami shooting Shinji a glance, his eyebrows drawn upward just a little towards his kerchief. Shinji still radiates a head over heels warmth, but somehow it feels like stepping hard through an imagined stair. Kouta isn't sure what he's missing between the two.

Before he can decide whether pointing it out would be a good idea or not, the door bursts open again and hits the wall with a crash that shakes a shower of dust from the ceiling. The three jump as Inui backs into the room. A new tray of food balances in his hands.

"Oi, Inui," Shinji begins, exasperation humming in his throat as he rises from his chair. Inui strides past him and puts the tray on the side table (not a toss, nor a place; a neutral-edging-on-rude put). He looks Kouta in the eye in a way that straightens Kouta's back.

"Eat it," he growls. "While it's hot."

"... Ah. Mm." Kouta puts up a fist in understanding, nodding along for emphasis. "Thank you."

Inui pauses, narrowing his eyes, then sweeps out, slamming the door behind him.

"'While it's hot,' are you serious?" Shinji growls and scratches at the back of his head, grabbing at the back of his chair before tossing himself back into the seat again. "You've seen him eat, Shouichi-kun."

"I know." Tsugami looks at Kouta, who feels kind of lost again but tilts his head in acknowledgement anyway. "But," Tsugami continues, rising to inspect the contents of the tray, lifting the lid off the rice porridge and peering closely at it, "There's no room to throw stones here. Ryoutarou probably asked him to say it or he wouldn't have mentioned it at all. You know?"

"... That's completely something he'd do." Shinji sighs and drags a hand down his face. "Okay, you got me."

"Uh." Kouta begins. The two riders glance at him and Kouta scrambles to phrase his thoughts. "It seems kind of like... Did something happen? With Inui-san, that is."

Both riders look at each other for a beat. "It's like Shinji-kun said," Tsugami finally answers, looking back at Kouta, clearly trying to smooth over the moment, "We all have our own deals. We've been here for a few months now, and a few of us have been here much longer. And... we're all different kinds of people."

"Ah... ha." Kouta nods. It's not really a surprise, per se.

"But there's nothing to worry about! Really!" Shinji waves a hand in front of his face, his eyes widened in urgency. "We'll get it worked out. No one wants anyone else dead here or anything."

"Really?" The word jumps out without much thought, but the look the two older riders give him (a little surprised, a little worried) has Kouta babbling out a small rejoinder. "Not that that's... that's. You know. I mean. That's nice. Really." Kouta smiles, feeling something crackle open inside his chest, spreading warmth outward. Too far outward; he feels his eyes prickle. Uh oh. He turns his head and pulls his arm up to his eyes, rubbing fiercely, laughing. "Lot of dust in this room. What's up with that, huh?"

"Yeah, you got that right." When Kouta puts his arm back down, both riders have their arms crossed and are looking up at the ceiling with solemn expressions on their faces. Shinji struggles with his but Kouta appreciates the effort. "Maybe we can get Kenzaki to dust it."

"Don't be petty." Tsugami looks back down at Kouta, beaming as he catches his eye. "Just because he's the tallest..."

"Tall people are _evil_ ," Shinji insists, but a bubble of laughter rises from his chest. Kouta isn't sure if he's getting the joke, but he feels his head bob along on cue. How dare those tall people.

"I'll deliver the news to the rest of my people," Tsugami says, frowning and furrowing his brow for a moment before snapping his fingers, a light turning on in his eyes. "That's right. If Kenzaki's the leader of the tall people, that means we'd have to call him _your highness_!"

Shinji and Kouta stare at him. Tsugami snickers to himself for ten seconds solid.

Shinji coughs. "Back to the subject. Uh. What was I..." He leafs through his notebook with theatrical bluster, squinting hard into his handwriting. "Name, age, hometown... Profession?"

"Profession?" Kouta can feel a prickle of heat travel up his neck as the seconds stretch into an uncomfortable pause. Not a job, a profession, oh, why did he have to say that word?

A waiter. Just a waiter! But what is a waiter to a real journalist, though? "Well, uh..."

"Hmm?" Tsugami leans forward, his face blank and innocent. "Stuck? Could it be... it's something racy, right?"

"N-no! Of course not!" Kouta feels his face flush fluorescent red. Isn't Shinji the nosy one? Screw that, they both have massive attitudes! "What are you - I'm a waiter, that's all! I do, uh, a lot of. Part-time jobs." He forces the last sentence out as a statement, not a mumble. He can do that, at the very least.

The sudden bark of laughter from Shinji doesn't surprise Kouta. His next words do. "Join the club," the rider says.

Kouta feels the heat in his cheeks snap and die, melting away. He looks at Shinji, eyes wide and searching his face for sarcasm, coming up with none.

"Man, what'd you react like that for?" Shinji scratches at the back of his head, the tiny metal stud in his left earlobe catching the light as his hand brushes the shell. His smile is wide, Kouta realizes, open and free. "It's fine. We're all kind of..." He makes a tilting gesture with his hand. "I guess you could say a lot of us are professional freeloaders? I've had to. We all had to. It's no big deal."

"You guys are a lot less grown-up than I thought you'd be," Kouta blurts out before he can stop himself.

"Grown-up?" Tsugami folds his arms over his chest again and screws up his face in thought. "I'm plenty grown-up. I do the dishes for everyone, I cook, I clean and do the laundry..."

"That's mom stuff," Kouta says, the words spilling from his mouth. He finds that he can't really stop it now that he's started.

"Hmm... Well. It's not like Shouichi-kun has adopted us yet. Paperwork and all." Shinji wiggles his eyebrows. "Moms _are_ adults though," he adds, waving a finger pointed upward, "so taking care of yourself like your mom would is a part of growing up, isn't it?"

"R... Right." Kouta's face is burning, but a tiny smile pushes its way onto his mouth anyhow. His tongue feels less confined by his teeth.

Both Riders nod. Shinji leans back, reaching his hands back and beginning to pick the pins out of his hair. Tsugami leans forward, settling his elbows on his legs and lacing his fingers together. "Do you," he asks, with a gentle force behind his voice, "want the rest today?"

Does he? This seemed like this was building into a Big Rider thing and Kouta still didn't know what he thought about all of that. The Big Rider Stuff always seemed a little out of his league, and he could never comprehend why they tended to revolve around him of all people. Why not Takatora? Why not Kaito? Hell, why not Micchy? Even with Kouta's four years on him, Micchy always seemed like he had things together.

... Thinking again. Kouta shook his head. None of that, not now. "What happened, exactly?" he asks, the sound of his voice going hoarser and hollower than he would have liked. "The last thing I remember..."

"Is the forest, right?"

Kouta looks at Shinji, surprised. "You mean Helheim?"

He doesn't expect the way both riders draw back and look at him, gazes suddenly acute. Shinji's pen appears and hovers over a fresh page of his notebook, his face drawn, serious. "You know its name?"

"Y-Yeah." Kouta's stomach starts dropping again. Oh no. "Is... that important?"

Tsugami's eyes narrow, focus drawn up and over the bed, a frown pursing his lip for the first time. "It is. And we might need to leave it for just - Shinji, I've got the curtain and the wall, get the window." In a bounding leap that belies his slim stature, he clears Kouta's bed and runs to the other side of the room, yanking the curtains open and dragging them with him as he runs to the wall opposite of Kouta's bed.

Shinji looks up from his notebook and swears. He shoves his notebook in his back pocket and vaults over Kouta's bed as well, ignoring Kouta's protests and pulling a - is that a train pass? - out of his other back pocket. " _Henshin!_ " he shouts, pointing it at the window, his shout echoed by Tsugami at the other end of the room.

It's all going faster than Kouta can register, but two things get through his daze.

One: The zippers opening up on the walls were flooding the floors and woodwork with undergrowth and flowers in the exact way he remembers them right before he was swallowed by the grey in his memory, surrounding their feet and creaking and cracking as the tendrils burst through the wood and glass, even as Agito summons a blazing sword and starts hacking away at the vines and Ryuki calls his dragon from his reflection in the window. It twists around and breathes a lavish, gembright sheet of fire onto the glass.

Two: The sky outside is filled with stars. Impossibly filled with stars, clouds of stars, stars misted into the dark sheet of the night like a spray of a thousand white paint flecks from the nozzle of some enterprising street tagger at midnight.

"Where are the trees?" Kouta hears himself ask faintly before billowing flames consumes the panorama before his eyes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was made, more or less, out of the dissatisfaction I’d felt with Gaim back around episode 30. The dissatisfaction is still present but like, making shit is more productive than whining about shit I don’t like, even if the shit made is ten thousand words (and counting) of fluffy slice-of-life crossover characterization porn. Which is coincidentally what this is: a transparent excuse for loads and loads of self-indulgent characterization and worldbuilding porn from someone who _really liked Heisei vs Showa, probably too much_. This will be crossover heavy and lacking in plot. Every character you care about will be mentioned, and most will be important. It may be irreverent. It may be funny. It may even be racy. But it'll be fun! And there will be a hell of a party at the end. I promise.
> 
> Rated T for Toei! Seriously, it's just some swears and stuff you wouldn't show to your grandma. That's it.
> 
> Updates are coming.... enh. Whenever. Soon? I'll let you know if they're never coming again. Cross my heart.
> 
> (I _think_ I am going for ten chapters in part one. Will update if shit goes sideways.)


	2. More characters sit around and explain the premise; Kouta almost gets murdered twice and it's exciting, sort of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the pause, I've been having some pretty radical traveling adventures myself and things have been wild. Way wild.
> 
> House Party is still alive. The next chapter should be coming in a few weeks. Relax. As always, I still gotcha.

* * *

 

"It's truly astonishing, simply amazing," says Philip, who tilts towards Kouta and lashes out with his hands, long fingers carving complicated explanations and theorems into the air as they walk (or limp, in Kouta's case) along the rich maroon carpet, their path lit by dim yellow lamps on the walls between the doors of the bedroom hall. "Normally a view like that would be impossible, or at least theoretically unfeasible; humankind hasn't yet developed the technology to instantiate artificial atmospheric fields, or at least none to the degree that would protect the entirety of something as sizable as the castle, but somehow, using the energy from the spare fruits we've gathered from your forest - Helheim, I have a few records on it but I haven't been able to get back in contact with the library, so unfortunately you and Kadoya-san are the only resources I have on the subject - it generates one completely of its own accord. I'll need to see your Lockseeds, now that I think about it, I need to know how the fruits change to the Lockseeds to properly utilize their energies in order to keep Doran moving, we can't keep hopping from meteor to meteor forever and hope for the best when the next may be lightyears away, and while an endurance run might be an entertaining venture, I do have Shoutarou's safety to consider. While I'm on the subject, remind me to put a fruit on your person so I can observe its reaction to your body during the mutation - or is it the _belt_ that acts as the catalyst and not you? There are various elements to consider here but I think those two are the most likely culprits-" 

"Um... What he means to say, Kazuraba-san, is that there's an atmosphere surrounding Castle Doran as it flies through space." Ryoutarou steps in, his voice raised just enough to interrupt Philip in the middle of his ramble. Kouta didn't mean to look so bewildered and feels kind of bad about the need to cut Philip off, but Philip only seems surprised, not offended. Ryoutarou smiles, a timid expression that still manages to fills his face. "That atmosphere lets us breathe if we accidentally break a window, and also catches the light from the stars, making it easier for our eyes to see them. It also helps that the castle gives off very little light; without light pollution, we can see the stars more clearly. That's why you can see so many of them. Isn't that right, Philip-kun?" 

"More or less," Philip says pleasantly. "It's an oversimplified explanation, but it's one Akiko-chan would understand." 

Kouta has to keep a straight face as he silently feels for this Akiko person. Philip is like Micchy with zero filter and he isn't sure how to handle that. "That... explains that. Thank you." 

Ryoutarou nods; Philip inclines his head and flips through a page of his book. (Kouta had peeked into the book when they first left the room. It was empty. In hindsight, he wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but that was sort of near the middle of the list, all things considered.) 

"So... We're in space. No one knows how we ended up here, or how people get here-" 

"The how is what we can explain, actually; the why and by what means are still up in the air. But go on." Philip runs a finger along an invisible line in his book. Kouta is positive he doesn't mean any offense. Very sure. 

"-but right now there's, uh, not much we can do to stop it?" 

"Yeah - stairs, it's just this flight and down to the kitchen and the big dining room." Ryoutarou holds his hands out toward Kouta as he starts easing his way down the stairs, moving step by careful step along with him. 

(Shouichi suspects that he's got several torn muscles in his calves and stomach and a fractured shinbone among other injuries, but none of them are certain. Kouta can walk, though, and that's good enough for him. He was out of his bed and on his feet and trying to do push-ups when Shouichi came with breakfast that morning. 

"Not that I like push-ups, not really," he'd babbled as Shouichi hauled him back into bed, his fists curled into Shouichi's shirt as he trembled all over, feeling a little cold and queasy. "I just got antsy! And there's no pull-up bar. And I don't know what else to do. Sorry." 

A half-hour later there were two riders at his door with an invitation to go see the kitchen. Kouta thanks his stars for Shouichi Tsugami constantly.) 

"But I thought that Tsukasa can travel between dimensions. Can't he just - ow - find the part of Helheim that's doing this and stop it?" 

"He could, in theory. He'd need to know where to go, though, and what to do." Philip waves a hand around, paying no mind to how Kouta winces his way down the steps. "A lot of the older riders have the same ability to travel across the dimensions, but his is the strongest and, as of right now, the most reliable. The others have reported that the ability is starting to send them to the incorrect places and times, and we'd much prefer being able to keep track of our manpower than send them willy-nilly through the multiverse trying to fix a problem we don't fully understand. We'd risk stranding them out there. Not an appealing option. Riders are, as of right now, in limited supply. Ryoutarou-kun, hang onto the railing tightly." 

"What?" Ryoutarou hangs onto the railing tightly, then yelps in surprise and catches his elbow over it as he slips down to a knee with a thump. Something clatters down the steps and into the hall below. 

"Ryuutaros left his crayons on the stairs. No time to elaborate, I didn't want you to come to any more harm than that." Philip snaps his book shut and turns his stare onto Ryoutarou, unblinking but with a slight furrow to his brow. "Sorry for the late notice, I wasn't paying attention. Are you all right? Didn't bite your tongue this time?" 

"I'm... yes. I mean, no. Yes and no. Yes. Everything is okay." Ryoutarou pulls himself back up onto his feet and shrugs at Kouta in both explanation and apology. "I've got bad luck." 

"I'm... sorry." Kouta is unsure what to do with the information besides feel a little horrified and sympathetic (and enlightened, finally), but anything other than his condolences would probably be weird. Unlike Agito and Ryuki, he knew what kind of person he'd built up Den-O to be in his head, and this frail-looking guy with a sweet smile, while a hell of a lot nicer than he'd been expecting him to be, wasn't it. 

"Let's get you both to the kitchen. He's much less accident prone when he's sitting down in a chair with no history of breakage." Under Philip's watchful eye, they hobble their way down the rest of the stairs and down the hall, which opens up to a kitchen tiled with dark red stone that shines under several lights. 

"And how _dare_ you!" 

They all jump as a high growl shatters the dead silence of the castle. Philip recovers first and takes a step towards the scene, his book clutched towards his chest and his head tilted, eyes focused. 

Leaning at the sink is the destroyer of worlds, the passing-through Kamen Rider Decade, Tsukasa Kadoya, dressed in his usual assembly of fitted clothes and artfully tousled hair. He slouches in a position that is _definitely not a cringe_ , trying not to look five centimeters shorter in front of a girl with her hands on her hips and her long hair swaying with every outburst that leaves her frame. A tiny silver bat giggles as it hides behind her ear. 

"How _dare_ you," she repeats, thrusting her hand behind her where a pile of half-folded laundry lies on the island countertop, a solid crimson slab in the middle of the room, "when I've told you again and again that this isn't poor Ryoutarou-kun's responsibility, and it's not _my_ responsibility, and Grandpa's not here to pick up the slack for your sorry self-" 

"I-It's really okay," Ryoutarou pipes up, voice caught and strangled as he takes a step forward. "I said, I said I didn't mind-" 

Her jaw locks into place as she takes a sharp breath in through the nose and jabs a finger in his direction. She doesn't take her eyes off Tsukasa. Ryoutarou winces anyway. (Kouta does too, although he doesn't know why. He sees Philip flinch near imperceptibly from the corner of his eye, but in the same way an arsonist would shy from a sudden burst of sparks to the face.) 

"Tee hee," the silver bat titters. 

"You," she starts again, jabbing her other pointer finger directly into Tsukasa's chest, "are _capable_ of taking responsibility for yourself, so you need to start _acting like it_." 

"He didn't mind," Tsukasa retorts. 

" _I_ mind, and _whose_ opinion matters here-" 

"Mine, of course." 

She doesn't flinch. "Tsukasa, don't think I won't lay you down and stomp on your crotch until I separate your-" 

"Natsumikan," Tsukasa says smoothly (if Kouta were to disregard the slight crack to his voice on the "na"), "remember what Ryoutarou and Philip left the kitchen to do?" 

"What does that even have to do - ooooooh," she sighs out. Her eyes squeeze shut and her teeth clench. "He's in here too, isn't he." 

"... Oh! Oh, yeah. Me." Kouta waves with his good arm as she turns to face him. "Hi." 

"Hey." Natsumi smiles back, sheepish. "Sorry." 

"You should be," Tsukasa says, swaying past her and towards the three in the threshold, bending at the waist towards Kouta, eyes flicking over his injured arm. His hands crawl towards the camera hanging at his chest and his eyes fall, gazing through the viewfinder. "You've ruined his pleasant walk. Shame on you, Hikari Natsumi." 

Out of the corner of his eye, Kouta can see Natsumi slide her eyes upward, then take her right thumb in her left hand and roll it in its socket. The joint cracks ominously. 

"How do you feel, Kouta?" Tsukasa does not react to the cracking noise behind him. He continues to speak, steady, the perfect, unblemished shot. _Click_. "Not that it makes much of a difference to your whole," he makes a vague gesture towards all of Kouta without looking up, "but you were in a bad way for a while." 

"Uh. I'm fine." Natsumi is behind you and she is going to kill you, Kouta doesn't say. "I'm... standing?" 

"Obviously." He runs his gaze back upward, studying Kouta's eyes like making measurements with a thumb and forefinger, before huffing out and leaning back on a heel, his hands leaving the camera for his back pockets. Eyes unfocused, bored again. "Well, it's good that you're back on your feet. You're the best lead we have on this whole catastrophe. Well, besides what _I_ know, anyway." There's a hint of (unwarranted) pride in his voice. 

"So I've been told." Kouta scratches his nose with an agitated hand. He can't see Natsumi anymore from behind Tsukasa. Philip is staring into the dead area with intense interest. Um. "Anything I can do to help?" 

"Get better." Tsukasa raises his eyebrows, looking down his nose at him. It's a long way down. "Any idiot can sit themselves down and heal. I expect more out of you, Gaim." 

Kouta's face burns. Damn it, Shouichi. "I'm trying, okay?" 

"Oh, I'm sure," Tsukasa fires back, but before the insult can burst forth from his mouth like a tidal wave of condescension, Kouta hears Natsumi's voice say something that sounds like it ends with "pressure point" and suddenly Tsukasa is down on a knee with Natsumi's thumb planted between the fold of two muscles in the right side of his neck. He is _howling_ with ragged, painful laughter. 

"N. Natsumi-chan." There's a whisper of horror in Ryoutarou's voice. 

Natsumi removes her thumb and blows over the tip. "Much better. Get well soon, okay?" She makes eye contact with Kouta and smiles, her eyes crescent knives of amusement. "You're our best bet at winning this thing at the moment, true, but you're also one of us. We'd all like to see you on your feet! Properly." 

"Ha ha ha," Tsukasa sobs. 

Somehow, this is even worse than getting stared down by the destroyer of worlds, but at least her well wishes seem sincere. "Yeah! I'll. I'll work on it." Kouta returns her smile. He knows his own smiles. They are very strong. (But are they strong enough?) 

In response, she punches her fist in the air between them, thumb still outstretched, but in approval this time. "You've got a great smile, by the way. C'mon, Tsukasa. Let's leave him alone. You've gotta learn how to fold your own shirts." 

"Haaaa." There is a plea in Tsukasa's eyes as Natsumi hooks her wrist under his shoulder and tows him away. Her other hand sweeps Tsukasa's laundry off the counter and over her shoulder, and she marches through the makeshift linen curtains at the other end of the kitchen and out the far door, the little bat on her shoulder blowing a kiss at the three before the curtain falls again. 

A heavy pause settles in the room. "Does that happen a lot," Kouta ventures to ask. 

"Uh. Well. I thought she'd be done by the time we got here," Ryoutarou says, an apology coloring his words. 

"This is only the second time I've seen her confront him like that, and it is the first time she's ever used the Hikari Family Pressure Point Technique in my presence." There's a blaring streak of delight in Philip's voice, his fingertips to his lips as he chatters to himself, wide-eyed. "I have it documented now, and it seems like there are more attack patterns than I'd been aware of. This merits further study." 

"L-Let's, um. Do that later." Ryoutarou casts a look at Kouta, smiling, pushing him along with a tilt of the head forward. "We need to sit Kouta-kun down, remember?" 

"Mm. Fine." 

Kouta cranes his head around as Ryoutarou guides him a few steps toward the center of the kitchen. There are lit gas lamps on the walls, but a string of heavy industrial lights like Kouta had used at various construction sites at night hum at the ceiling, tacked up with screws and powered by some unseen generator. A bevy of mismatched seats surround the island. Ryoutarou pulls out a chair with a back for Kouta before pulling a stool out for himself. As Kouta eases into his seat, he notices that something steams white behind the linen sheets on the line behind which Natsumi had disappeared, warming his skin under the shirt Ryoutarou had pulled over his bandages. (Kouta had argued against his help, but the fact was that he couldn't lift his arms over his head without something in his chest crackling and reducing him to a cringing, miserable curl of a rider. Philip reasoned the proper course of action from there.) 

Now that he thinks about it, there are a _lot_ of lines and clothespins in here in varying states of use and disrepair. 

"Laundry for lots of people," Ryoutarou says as he follows Kouta's line of sight, allowing himself to be shooed off of the seat he'd just chosen and sitting in a stool that Philip takes from the far end of the island. "Everyone pitches in, but Shouichi-kun is in charge and Takumi likes laundry more than the rest of us, so most of it is up to them. Everyone folds their own, though." 

"Tsukasa likes to think he's an exception, but. Hm." Philip smiles, an expression that either looks like a dance or a hunt. "I didn't realize Natsumi-chan felt so strongly about the subject. That's fun." 

When Kouta gets back to Zawame City, he's going to have to tell Bandou that he was completely right about the so-called world destroyer. "I feel bad for her, a little." 

"Natsumi-chan?" Ryoutarou breathes a laugh. The tension from earlier seems to be easing away from his shoulders. "Uh... Well, despite what it looked like earlier, you don't have to. I think she enjoys it." 

"And we could all use some entertainment." Philip puts his book down on the counter and hops up, crossing his legs. Ryoutarou reaches out and taps his knee; Philip lets his feet down in response, swinging them a little. "Tsukasa, Godai-san, and Natsumi-chan get to have all the fun, and Kisaragi's the only one whose suit is made to withstand the vacuum outside Doran's atmosphere. We're working on modifying Kenzaki's and Inui's, but supplies for those kinds of alterations don't arrive often, so they can only stay out there for about half an hour, if that." 

"Arrive?" 

"In the same way we do, sometimes, but we scavenge most of the time." Ryoutarou nods towards the window above the sink, where stars scatter in the blackness. "Sometimes we come across various things out there - cars, buildings, even a ship once - and Gentarou-kun brings stuff back from them. If it's too big for him to explore on his own, he and the castle work together to get them as close as possible so Kenzaki-san and Takumi-kun can go out safely and help him look. That's how we got most of the stuff here." 

"Supplies aren't rationed or limited, though. We're mindful of some things, but there's usually plenty to go around." Philip's heels bounce off the cabinets as he leans back on the meat of his palms. "The castle was well supplied from the outset, and I believe that Godai-san, Tsukasa, and Kurenai-san had a few adventures and got very creative trying to gather enough supplies once everyone started arriving at once, but Kisaragi's arrival solved most of their problems." 

"Mm, it was tough for a while." Ryoutarou laces his fingers together in front of him. "Once Hibiki-san appeared, it was eleven of us hoping that they'd hop somewhere safe and then hop back safely with what we needed. There were a lot of close calls. Gentarou-kun being here makes everything much easier." 

"Has it been a while since he's been here?" 

"He arrived the same day you two did, didn't he?" Ryoutarou turns towards Philip, who nods. "So, that was a month ago." 

"Thirty-two days, not counting any temporal displacements in the interim." Philip lifts his eyes to the ceiling thoughtfully. "And there are a lot more time related incongruities running around than one would think there would be." 

"Time... what?" Kouta puts his head down in his palm, winces, then uses his other palm. "Explain that again?" 

Philip pauses, then tilts his head to the side, looking Kouta in the eye. Kouta can almost see the LEDs in Philip's head light up as he... computes. "Later, when I've got a firmer grasp of what's going on, time-wise," he finally answers. "I've had a hard enough time explaining my theories to Shoutarou-kun, I can't imagine what I'd say to you." 

"Hey!" Kouta's mild irritation grows into a creature five-alarm hot. 

"Philip-kun, maybe you should be a little..." 

"Less dismissive?" Philip chuckles. "Perhaps, although that's never been my territory." 

"And that's why you leave it to me, right?" Kouta swivels in his chair as Hidari Shoutarou attempts to sweep aside the curtains with a wave of his arm and succeeds in pulling down the entire sheet on top of him, then the one next door, clothespins flying everywhere. He yells, a pulsating specter of white linen and glimpses of visible limbs, before staggering back onto the doorway for balance. 

"Hi, Shoutarou." Philip slips off the counter and trots over, grabbing onto one of Shoutarou's flailing hands and pulling the fabric off him. Ryoutarou rises as well, walking over and bundling the linens into his arms as Philip drops them to the floor. "Did Kenzaki send you?" 

"Yeah." Shoutarou grumbles a little, folds his thumbs into his pockets, removes his thumbs as he untangles his arms from the second sheet, then puts them back in again. "He doesn't get the instructions for the coupling on the, uh, air thing." 

"Well, that's to be expected." Philip drops the last of the sheet into Ryoutarou's arms and pulls Shoutarou away from the door, looking back at Ryoutarou and Kouta. "I'm just about done here, anyhow. Let's take a look." 

"Yeah," Shoutarou says, then looks over at Ryoutarou, then at Kouta. "I'm not pulling him away from something, am I?" 

Kouta shakes his head slowly; Ryoutarou does the same, but with more assurance. "We were just taking a walk. Kenzaki's suit is more important. Go on." 

"Right." Shoutarou pauses at the door, then gives Kouta a firm nod. "Good seeing you again, Gaim." 

"Yeah. You too." Kouta watches Shoutarou walk off with Philip at his side, forcefully ignoring the moment he stumbles on an errant clothespin, which clatters back into the kitchen. Philip's voice pipes up, chiding and good natured; Shoutarou returns with some scoffed banter that eventually dissolves into some sort of shoving match interspersed with shouts and laughter that fade down the hall. 

"They give off a nice feeling when they're together." Ryoutarou smiles as Kouta catches his eye, then rolls his armful of curtains around until he finds a corner, which he holds out to him. "Hold onto this for me, please." 

"Oh, sure." Kouta grabs the corner and Ryoutarou begins stretching the fabric out and folding it over, making sharp corners with his fingers and smoothing out the wrinkles with his hands. Kouta takes the chance to look into the area blocked off before, a surprisingly large alcove that houses a mismatched array of ordinary washing machines and dryers (although they do look a little battered and worn). They take up residence with two large, old-fashioned tubs, which puff with the steam he'd seen earlier. 

"It's the community bath and laundry," Ryoutarou explains, putting the final folded square down on the counter. "We've got running water, but for a while we couldn't figure out a good way to make any of it run hot. Now that we've got a generator, it's less of a problem, but we still use these to save on fuel." 

"Looks like you guys have stuff figured out." Kouta means it. Even with Gentarou and the rest looking for supplies, it's still kind of boggling that they're doing so well. 

"It took a lot of trial and error. There were a lot of things we had to figure out near the beginning..." Ryoutarou shrugs. "But we managed to get past it, working together. For instance, you should take a look at Shouichi's garden sometime." 

"There's a garden?" In space? 

"With fresh fruits and vegetables, yes." Ryoutarou laughs a little at the look of disbelief in Kouta's face. "It's why we've got fresh air. It's kind of a long walk from here, but once you get better we can take a look." 

"You guys really have been busy... How long have _you_ been here?" 

"Me? Hmm." Ryoutarou starts opening cupboards, revealing tins of tea and heavy mugs hidden behind mismatched sets of dishware. "Me and Kintaros and Ryuutaros got here... well, it was before the Hikari Studio was in the attic. At least five months before that. The castle seemed pretty empty back then." 

Something feels off about the statement, but Kouta isn't one to think about these things in the here and now. "That's a pretty long time. And you guys can't leave, and a lot of the time there's not a lot for you to do besides chores... right? So what do you do for fun?" 

"Fun?" Ryoutarou pads over to the sink and fills a tarnished kettle with water from the tap, thinking. "Well, we've got a little library that's grown by a lot with Philip-kun around, and I know we keep all of the games we find in there too... But mostly, I think we try to keep busy with chores in between watching out for those zippers." 

"Not me! I like coloring and dancing!" 

Kouta blinks as Ryoutarou stumbles forward, then straightens. The voice came from Ryoutarou's mouth, but he sounds... off. And, uh. Ryoutarou. Has a hat on, suddenly, and a purple streak in his hair, and giggles with delight and waves the kettle around with reckless abandon, the water sloshing and spilling through the spout. Just as suddenly as he began, he stops his sway, frowns, and huffs to himself. " _Fine_ ," he says, setting the kettle down and jamming the handle on the faucet off before proceeding to kick-step his way through the kitchen again. He comes to a sudden halt, staring up at the empty space where the curtains used to be as though he'd never seen it before. "Hey, hey, big bro," he says, pointing up at the space and shooting Kouta a plaintive look. "Hey, big bro," he repeats, tilting his head and pouting, "When did that happen, huh? Who did that?" 

"That. Uh." Kouta is flummoxed. Ryoutarou saw what happened. He was right there. What's going on? "That was W. Uh. Shoutarou. He was in here just a few minutes ago. Remember?" 

"Nuh-uh! I wasn't here!" He hops forward and jumps clear over the edge of the counter, lands in a crouch on the counter space right in front of Kouta and puts his face in his left hand. Kouta scoots back in his chair a little. Ryoutarou's eyes are glowing bright; neon purple blinding. 

"Anyway, you're being really silly, you know that? They're both W! Shou-chan and Philip, they're both W. Like how me and Ryoutarou are both Den-O!" He reaches over and pushes Kouta's head back with a finger between his eyes. "D'uuuuuuh." 

"You're... Not Ryoutarou?" This feels like it should explain a lot. Mostly, it feels like all of the sirens in the back of his head (which are usually dead) are sputtering back to life. 

"I-I-I'm Ryuutaros!" He bounces on his heels, rapping his hands on the edge of the the counter before pointing the same finger between Kouta's eyes, jerking it back in an imagined recoil. " _Bang!_ If I had my gun," he says seriously, "you'd be dead right now. Okay?" 

Kouta can't imagine anything less okay. 

"I - can't - hear - you!" Ryuutaros leans back until he lands his seat on the counter and kicks out his legs, letting them swing out to Kouta's sides. He leans forward again, purple eyes boring into Kouta's. "Hey, if you're pretend dead, that means I win. Play with me." 

"I - don't. I mean." Refusing this strange and mildly homicidal child that has suddenly taken over Ryoutarou's body doesn't seem like the best idea at the moment. But. 

"No?" Ryuutaros lets out a heartfelt sigh. Apparently, he sees the refusal in Kouta's face. "But you _have_ to. Kin-chan is no fun, and Ryoutarou is soooo busy, and I haven't seen the stupid peach or turtle-butt in for _ever_. I miss the Denliner." Ryuutaros kicks the air with less aplomb, his eyes downcast. "Naomi-chan made the best snacks and thought all of my pictures were cool. No, you can't come out, I wanna be here right now." 

The last statement sets off a final siren in Kouta's head. He can't think of another person Ryuutaros could be talking to except Ryoutarou, and if he's trapped somehow... "Hey, can I talk to Ryoutarou?" 

"No." Ryuutaros pouts. "He hasn't played with me for way too long. He stays with me until I feel like it." 

"Not even if I promise to play with you?" Kouta winces inwardly. Well. That's the only bargaining chip he's got. 

Ryuutaros switches on, eyes burning nuclear hot. He kicks his legs out. "Ya mean it, big bro?" 

"Sure do." Kouta peers back, unblinking. "What do you wanna do?" 

"Weeell." Ryuutaros kicks his legs, thinking. "I lost my crayons, so that leaves dancing. Nobody here likes dancing. Do you like to dance?" 

"W. Well, yeah." Kouta nods. Oooh boy. "I used to dance with a team a couple of years ago." 

"Me too!" Ryuutaros pauses. "Well, it was kind of... they were a team, but they weren't mine. Like. I thought they were mine and then they weren't?" He pauses, his face drawing a blank as he struggles through some befuddled swampy child logic. 

"What kinds of things can you do?" he finally asks. 

"Well, uh." Kouta lifts up his busted arm. "I'd show you, but I'm like this. All over." 

"Eh, that's no good." Ryuutaros peers at the injury with disdain. "You should try anyway." 

"I can't. I'd break something and then it'd take even longer for me to dance right." 

"But I want you to dance." Ryuutaros is lifting an arm into the air for some reason, his fingers curling up and over the pad of his thumb. He is grinning wildly. "Isn't that okay?" 

"It's-" 

"Can't hear ya," Ryuutaros crows, but before his fingers can go through with the snap, he pauses, his eyes widening and focusing into the middle distance. "Really? And they're okay?" He pauses again. "You didn't snap them with your butt, did you?" 

Ryoutarou. It has to be Ryoutarou. "Ryuutaros?" 

Kouta ducks as Ryuutaros swings his leg over him, kick-flinging himself towards the exit by the stairs. "No time to play with you, big bro. I gotta go rescue my crayons! Be right back. You'd better be better when I'm back. Okay?" 

Ryuutaros' footsteps slap against the wood and away, echoing back through the tile kitchen and leaving Kouta on his own in a thoroughly pristine kitchen, barring several puddles of water on the floor, the kettle on the counter, and the mugs and tins next to the sink. Kouta does not want to meet anyone else today. 

Kouta is struggling to spoon loose tea leaves into a small wire diffuser at the sink when a sniffing noise jerks his chin towards the still missing curtain. In a pressed pair of slacks and formal jacket, a strange man pierces through Kouta's first look with his own gaze. His arms are crossed over his chest and his bowtie dangles above them, undone. 

"I was going," he says slowly, his voice rumbling with amusement through his throat, "to take a bath." 

... Oh, right! "The curtains, ah. Right there." Kouta gestures behind him, where the curtains still lie with the clothespins Kouta had spent about ten minutes hobbling around and gathering. "Sorry, I would've put them back up, but." 

A single eyebrow rises on the stranger's face. "You're the new kid. Gaim, right?" He holds the m down with his lips a bit longer than necessary. 

It's a little strange, knowing that he's been introduced to everyone with his title, not his name, and certainly not with any other identifying features besides his injuries. "Yeah, that's me." Kouta nods, still holding the little wire diffuser up at his chest. "Kazuraba. Nice to meet you." 

"You came in pretty banged up, I heard." The man rolls through the introduction as he comes closer, pulling the folded sheet toward him and putting the pins aside one by one. He gives Kouta a run up and down with his eyes, working through the same checklist Tsukasa and Ryuutaros had used, but his gaze lingers at his leg, then his arm, then the peek of bindings at Kouta's collar, calculating in a different way. Electric goosebumps prickle up Kouta's back. "No need to apologize." 

"Ah. Uh. Yeah." Holy shit. "And, uh... you are?" 

"Jirou." He takes the sheet and shakes it out, turns around and tosses it over the line. "Nice to meet you too, Kazuraba," he adds, pulling a stepstool from behind him. He takes the clothespins, steps up, and begins fastening the sheet in place with firm hands. 

"Yeah." ... Why is Kouta thinking about his hands? He swivels back around, turning his attention toward the tea again. "I was kinda wondering who drew the bath. Did you really need both, though?" 

"Mm." Jirou's voice is a little muffled by the sheet, but clears after his feet hit the floor again. "I'm meeting a friend here." 

"Ooh, so. You guys are gonna. Spend some time - ow." Kouta drops his spoon and grabs his wrist. Tea leaves scatter into the sink as the spoon clatters, metal on stone ringing through to his eardrums. He'd had some trouble feeding himself earlier, but he'd thought that getting some tea leaves into a little wire cage would be a snap compared to a meal. 

There's a tutting noise. Right behind him. "Let me get that." 

"Geez!" Kouta jumps as he turns a little, his heart still skittering around in his ribs as Jirou's arm reaches around him to take the spoon from the sink, warm and close through the pressed lines of his suit. Slow. He releases a sigh as he takes the tea tin and the diffuser from the counter and starts filling it. Something about the way his face is set, the edges that lead from his eyes down to his mouth curved upward in not-a-smile, feels like a long, slow prowl. 

Kouta gulps. Why did he leave his driver back in the room? 

"You been eating a lot of fruit lately, kid?" Jirou closes the diffuser and extends it towards him, one-handed. He snorts a little. "Not that I'm calling you an herbivore..." 

"No. No, I mean." Kouta puts his hand around the diffuser (gingerly, trying not to set off the nerves in his wrist again). "I-I dunno what I mean, actually. Maybe that's just. Kind of what I am now?" 

"An orange?" 

"Yeah." ... Wait. His hand freezes in between them as realization hits. "How'd you...? Ow!" Kouta braces himself against the sink as Jirou wraps a hand around his wrist and pulls it towards his nose, giving the soft space where his veins tints his skin dark in tree branch patterns a polite yet still-invasive whiff. "H-Hey, knock it off!" 

"You smell good, kid." Jirou's eyes hollow out into rich, dark blackness. His hand isn't tight around Kouta's wrist, but it hurts too much to just wrench it out of his grasp. "Not coffee... more of a smoothie king, aren't you? That's fine. I've been thinking about doing some experimenting myself." 

Something flashes out of the corner of Kouta's eye, sailing over the curtain. _Pang!_ It bounces harmlessly off of Jirou's head and clatters on the floor, sending sharp humming notes through the room as it tumbles to a spinning halt. Jirou sighs, his eyes rolling heavenward, blessedly distracted, as Kouta looks down at the interloper. It's like... a fork? With two tines. A tuning fork? 

"Ah, ah, _oh_. My fault." The sheet trembles, then an arm tosses it aside, wrapped in a practical, unassuming sweater and attached to a practical, unassuming man. Older, with neatly clipped hair and eyes that drift on the entire scene once before he bends on a knee to pick up the fork, folding it in on itself on some unseen hinge and stuffing it into a back pocket. "Butterfingers, me, and so on. Let go of the kid, wolf-friend, we could hear you prowling clear down the hall." 

Jirou sighs again. "Wolfen. The word is Wolfen." But he lets go of Kouta's wrist. 

Kouta grabs his wrist with his other hand, holding onto the tea diffuser tight, trying not to look too relieved. "We?" he asks. 

"And me," a beefy yellow monster announces as he sweeps the curtain aside, his fluffy fur collar billowing in the sudden draft. 

The man winces as the echoes of Kouta's shout exit the kitchen. "Aha. Don't panic, Kintaros here wouldn't hurt a fly." 

"Unless the fly were bold enough to harm me first." The monster puts a thumb to his chin and pushes, cracking his neck. "Then let him come!" 

"I'm sure it would put up a fight for the ages. Get that tea for the boy, won't you? This one," the man says, taking three strides over and pulling Jirou by the ear, "and I have a date." 

"Ow." Jirou pulls a face. "I was just having some fun." 

"You're also a cannibal, and you know the rules." 

"It's not cannibalism. Technically." 

A chill runs up Kouta's spine and bleeds into the rest of his body as realization soaks in. Oh. A cannibal. Okay. 

"Yes, yes, you can tell Wataru-kun all about your technicalities later. First, bath." He walks Jirou to the curtain and pushes him through, giving him a nudge with his foot on his seat of his slacks for good measure. "Get naked, I'll be there in a sec." 

"Fine." Jirou has the gall to sound cheated as the linen falls behind him. 

"The tea, young one." Kintaros stretches his hand out, stepping into Kouta's view of the spectacle. He tilts his head, a gesture that makes the visor where his eyes should be look sympathetic... somehow. 

Kouta looks at the enormous hand before waking up fully. "Oh. Right." He unwraps his hands from around the ball and sets it in Kintaros' hand, staring into his own palm as Kintaros scoops up the kettle and strides towards the stove. Red lines criss cross the pads of Kouta fingers where he had been holding on to it. 

"You all right, boy?" Kouta looks up to see the new stranger looking at him, concern creasing his brow and pinching slight crows feet at the corners of his eyes. 

Kouta snaps his hand shut, nodding his head. "Yeah. Uh, thank you." 

"No big deal. He really didn't mean anything by it, I'm sure, but he doesn't have much respect for anyone's boundaries but Wataru-kun's. He won't be bothering you anymore, though." He looks over towards the stove and Kouta follows his gaze. "Kintaros, you should ask about Ryuutaros." 

"Read my mind." Kintaros leaves the kettle on the stove (already lit) and walks back towards them, arms crossed. "Have you seen him, young one? A dragon child, a being like myself but purple." He makes a pointed motion with his hands. "And spiky." 

"N. No." Kouta feels weak somehow. He leans up against the sink again. "Well, yeah, but he. I think he might have possessed Ryoutarou? They went that way." 

Both man and monster look toward the exit Kouta points at, then at each other, nodding in mutual understanding. "Perfect," the man says. "Kintaros can take you back to your room and I'm sure...?" 

"Once I find Ryoutarou-kun and Ryuutaros, I'll bring your tea." Kintaros puts a steadying hand on Kouta's shoulder. "Nothing to worry about." He directs his attention back at the man. "Enjoy your bath, Hibiki-san." 

"Sure will." In response, the man (Hibiki?) does kind of a swirly salute, accompanied by a short, entirely unnecessary sound effect from between his lips. (Kouta wouldn't admit it, but he's a little impressed.) " _Shu._ Training bright and early tomorrow. No sleeping in." 

"Of course." They watch as Hibiki disappears behind the curtain, then Kintaros turns to him. "Come along." 

"Thanks." Kouta feels like he's been doing a lot of thanking, lately, but steadies himself on the proffered bulky yellow forearm anyway. 

"You're welcome." They make their way down the hall and halfway up the stairs before Kintaros notices Kouta's wobble even before Kouta does himself. A half-second and very little effort from the yellow beast-man-thing later, he finds himself being carried like a baby up the stairs. "You would have made it, I'm sure," Kintaros reassures him, "I'm just in a hurry." 

Kouta feels grateful for the thought, at least. "Kintaros... san?" 

"'Kintaros' is fine." 

"Right." Just Kintaros. "You're the one who brought me up to my room, right? A few days ago." 

Kintaros grunts in confirmation. 

"I guess I should thank you again." 

"No need." Kintaros snorts. "You weigh less than the tissues with which my defeated enemies mop their tears. And your value is much more," he adds thoughtfully. 

"Huh." Kouta isn't sure why he added that, but he appreciates it. "I see." 

They proceed up the stairs and towards the door, with Kouta lost in his thoughts and Kintaros not being much for conversation, Kouta assumes. 

He looks up at Kintaros after a moment. After he got over the lack of eyes and the horn and the permanent frown, the guy wasn't all that scary. 

"Hey, Kintaros?" 

"Yes?" 

"I'd kind of. Well, earlier, yesterday, Shinji-kun said that no one here wanted anyone here dead. So." 

"Did he." Kintaros rumbles in thought for a moment. "I'm sure Jirou-san didn't want you dead," he says finally, slowing to a halt at Kouta's door and letting him roll out of his arms. "He just wanted to eat you. And it wasn't you he was after, it was your soul! And the rest of you besides. He was right, those are two very different things," he comments, opening the door for Kouta. 

"Ah. Right." Kouta nods in total incomprehension. Okay, maybe he's a little scary. 

Kouta backs into his room and gives Kintaros a polite nod farewell. Kintaros bows in response before excusing himself, disappearing in a lumbering jog down the hall. 

(It's only later that night when Kouta's brushing his teeth with an awkward hand when he realizes what was so wrong with what Ryoutarou said earlier that day. What everyone had said. What Philip had hinted at but never explained. 

A month ago. Five months ago. 

Hadn't he met them all in Fuuto City a few weeks before...?)


End file.
